Thursday, March 21, 2013

Yes, yes. Don't distribute. Hardcopy forms are not useful for those of us that play online. Fillable forms, though. Much better. If WotC had half a brain, they would provide them. But then, the terms of the playtest are "in-person games only", so they clearly do not have half a brain.

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Thought up a character and decided to share. This is about as much background as I feel a PC needs - notice that it doesn't have tons of history - just a little flavor, a basic description of the guy and some hints about class/stats (mage, high dex).

For you Malazan fans, Tanner Rhyse is a low-level squad mage, Malazan Army, and practitioner of Serc, the Path of the Sky.

Tanner Rhyse

Everyone comes out of Malazan Basic with a nickname. Braven Tooth makes sure of that. Since most recruits are interested in leaving
their past behind, a new name is OK with them.

Another Malazan Basic tradition is the obstacle course. It’s a horrible course. Mud, walls, rusty spikes, iron-heavy logs to
carry, rough hemp rope to swing on. It’s
designed to break down a recruit so that they can be rebuilt as Malazan
soldiers.

For Corlis Rhyse, the obstacle course was a revelation. He’d always been too tall for his own comfort
– a lanky connection of sharp knees, elbows and bony angles. On the obstacle course, he discovered that he
was, quite simple, the best. Flowing
over and around and through and under like some sort of clockwork mechanism
tuned to this specific task.

His competency annoyed the drill instructors. The obstacle course is a place for exhaustion,
pain, filth and ultimately, failure.
Redemption and competency are supposed to come later – not on the first
run on the first day.

So they made him run it again. And again.
And again. He did. Happily.
Easily. Smoothly. Corlis Rhyse was so overjoyed to be GOOD at
something that he couldn’t do what the instructors wanted. Couldn’t slow down. Couldn’t get filthy and exhausted and
clumsy. He just blew through it twenty
or so times while the rest of the recruits stood there and gawped like the
farm-boys most of them were.

That wasn’t the worst thing, though. Oh no.
The worst thing was that Corlis Rhyse was supposed to be EVEN WORSE at
the obstacle course than regular recruits.
I mean, he’s tapped to be a squad mage, for Hood’s sake. They only put the squad mages on the obstacle
course for the first few days, so they’re happier about going and doing other
squad-magey things.

It was Braven Tooth himself who really put his finger on
what pretty much everyone – from the training sergeants right down to the
gawping farm-boy recruits was feeling. “He
really chaps my hide,” said the master-sergeant, at one of the training officer
meetings (held at Smiley’s – per long-standing tradition). Everyone agreed.

And so Tanner Rhyse – generally known at Tanner or “that
fucking mage from the obstacle course” – emerged from Basic. Still too tall and
gangly. A loosely attached collection of
overlong parts with a pale face, perpetually surprised expression and a warren
which seemed to mostly be good for messing up his hair, blowing away important
pieces of paper and making him sneeze at very inopportune times (like when a
drill instructor is right up in his face yelling at him about how good he was
at the obstacle course). But a squad
mage, right enough. And one that
understood the principle of the even trade.